Descent of Nightmare (Chapter Twenty-Six)
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saladloveChapter list: https://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/650.html
Map of Kaldriel: https://i.gyazo.com/332b0c0172dcc60acb46
Rough map of Hatu: https://i.gyazo.com/ea4f9f51b9dc7b9d8b86
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mercy and Murder
Ruby Gate, Kaldriel. November 12, 2277. Time instance 842N.
Tac still wasn’t sure why she was here.
The angels had appeared early in the morning, just before dawn. They’d had to wake up and grab their weapons quickly, and Tac had found that, once again, she was completely and totally useless. She had no ranged abilities whatsoever and her aim with a gun was shaky at best, so she held tightly to her sword and stood in the back next to Nathan, watching him throw spells and raise skeletons. Why she bothered to participate in battles, she didn’t know. The last time she’d been useful had been- she hesitated, having difficulty thinking of a time when she’d ever been useful in battle.
Well, she’d gotten her hands cut off one time. That had at least distracted the cyborg they were trying to kill. The ends of her arms tingled painfully in memory and she shook it off, metal fingers gripping her sword hilt tightly. Now wasn’t a good time to be thinking.
“Tac, would you be so kind as to make sure there aren’t any angels sneaking up behind me? I’m afraid I don’t have eyes on the back of my head and the ones in front aren’t entirely real.”
“I can do that.” Tac had gotten used to the weird things that Nathan said, but it didn’t mean she totally understood what the hell he was talking about or why he bothered to say them. The fact that he showed up once every few weeks and stole Shawn for a few days (often coming back in a different car than they’d left in) meant that she got a decent amount of time to talk to him, but she wasn’t ever too enthusiastic about doing so. Still, he’d given her something to do, and she set herself to only look for any angels threatening to draw close.
It didn’t seem like any of them would dare. A particularly terrifying blast of blue energy from Nathan destroyed a Guardian and three angels huddling behind him, their charred bodies hitting the ground with a thud inaudible in the din of battle. Another angel screamed and hit the ground with burned wings courtesy of what looked like Chris, and before she could even stand three of Nathan’s skeletons and a two thousand unit moved in on her. Tac pulled her eyes away to keep scanning the skies.
She hesitated, however, at an odd flux of magic a little ways away. All of the angels radiated a lot of magic, as did most of the friendly combatants, but this magic seemed to have no source in particular. She focused on it, tilting her head and frowning. It kept flitting behind and through the angels, circling overhead completely unnoticed, as if searching for something.
The movement of air pulled Tac’s attention back to the surrounding area. Her head snapped around to see a near-identical magical shimmer right next to her, and as she watched, transfixed and terrified, an angel with gray wings and a blade for a left hand materialized and stabbed Nathan through the back and out the chest.
Nathan glanced down. “Not again,” he complained, and the blade lit up with light energy, making him roar and disintegrate into nothing. His necklace hit the ground, shining in the light and cheerfully continuing to radiate magic as Tac watched, stunned.
The angel turned his head slightly to look at her, winked, and faded from sight. Wind from his wings buffeted her as he took off, his magical signature quickly vanishing into the distant crowd of angels.
Tac slowly reached down and picked up Nathan’s necklace, shoving it into her pocket and wondering what the hell had just happened as her heart pounded in terror. A twinge of worry for Nathan ran through her but she remembered his earlier reassurances that if he died he’d be fine, he’d just need a few days to show up again.
She deeply hoped that was true and bounded her way over to Nine, suddenly feeling remarkably unsafe.
“They’ve got invisible angels,” she warned, tapping his shoulder to get his attention. “One of them just stabbed Nathan.” She wondered why she was so nonchalant about this. Shouldn’t one of her acquaintances being stabbed by an invisible angel warrant some kind of greater reaction? Shouldn’t she be more worried?
Nine frowned. “How stabbed is he?”
“He dissolved into dust and dropped his necklace.”
“Pretty stabbed,” Nine decided. “Well, he’s a lich, so he’ll be back. Asshole.” He raised his arm and shot a Balancer angel that was charging up some kind of spell, making her shout in pain and marking her a target for the nine thousand unit that had been assigned to guard Nine while in the field. Its presence made Tac uneasy, memories of the revolution and the battle at the Mainframe surfacing, but she tried to dismiss it. She had more important things to worry about right now.
“I can see them.”
“What?”
“I can see the invisible angels. They’ve got magic radiating off of them.”
That was enough to make Nine look at her, his eyebrows shooting up. “Why didn’t you say that before?”
“I didn’t know that they had invisible angels!”
“They do. They’re called Punishers and it’s not a good thing that they sent one after Nathan.” Nine paused, frowning. “What did this angel look like?”
“Gray wings. Tall. He had a blade for a left arm.”
Nine hissed through his teeth. “That’s one of the rank five Punishers, among the best of the best. I don’t remember what Cataclysm said his name was but he’s nicknamed Shiv. He was in service when Cataclysm was still an angel, and according to Terok he’s still going strong. They must be pretty pissed at Nathan.” He shot another angel. “It won’t be long until they figure out I’m in charge. Could you look out for them and point out any that you see? I’m sure I can find a way to pick up on them but I’m a little busy right now.”
Tac nodded and resigned herself once more to spotting. As she looked around for hidden Punishers, a burst of red-and-blue flames caught her attention. She thought it was Clash, but no, the phoenix was too aggressive, up in the air and clawing at eyes, making angels scream and grip at their faces, others helpless to attack out of fear of hitting their comrades. Memory clicked and she slowly nodded, remembering Solace’s existence and dismissing the fact.
She froze as she started to look away and her eyes shot back to watch the phoenix.
Weren’t the labkids sitting out this battle?
~~~
Solace was pretty sure that she was the smartest labkid of them all. She didn’t need a reason to think that, but she had one, so it only increased her surety in this fact.
A couple of the others had wanted to fight at the Ruby Gate, but Twelve had insisted that they stay out of the fight and wait for her to return. They had all reluctantly stayed back in Akrar, but not Solace. She’d wanted to fight. She’d never felt so powerful as she did when she proved time and time again that she was better than a being supposedly trained for years and years to battle creatures of flame and magic, rumored to be perfect and more powerful than all the forces of Hell.
So she just left, shifting into her phoenix form and following everyone else through the Hellgates. Simple as that. She couldn’t believe that no one else had tried it. And, better yet, she’d be back before Twelve and Everex were, so they didn’t even have to know.
Solace folded her wings and dove, down towards an unsuspecting angel. She spread her wings as she hit, flapping them and covering the angel in fire as her talons sank into his shoulder. He roared in pain, struggling to get her off as the other angels around him shouted and struggled to help.
“Stand back!”
Solace wasn’t sure which angel said this as the moment she was done speaking, a blast of cold, bright energy slammed into her, ripping her from the angel’s shoulder and throwing her into a group of angry Avenger angels.
Oh, shit.
A sword slashed through her body and she shrieked in pain, wreathing herself in fire in an attempt to made them back off. A Guardian waded in, protected by the shell around his body, and swung at her, narrowly missing as she frantically started flying around him, trying to orient herself in the vortex of feathered wings and dying flame.
Solace dove and flew under them, shrieking as they followed, another beam of energy narrowly missing her left wing. Liquid flame dripped from the aching wound on her torso and she felt her energy dropping faster than it ever had before. Fear licked at her heart and she swooped down, towards the friendly forces, desperate for safety and leaving all bravado behind. A third beam of energy skimmed her other side, ripping a hole in her wing and making her scream as all sense of flight was abandoned and she fell, fell towards the ground with her wings streaming uselessly behind her and bleeding molten energy as she went.
She hit something solid far too soon and flames licked along the collision point, mingling with her own and giving her strength.
“What are you doing here?!” Clash’s voice was unmistakable, even though she barely knew him.
“I’m… helping…”
“You almost died! I don’t know if you have enough energy to revive after bleeding that much!”
“I might have gotten overwhelmed. I’m used to… Everex.”
“Why did you come out here at all?”
She didn’t answer him, preferring to grip tightly to his back as he soared down to the ground with her, landing next to an unfamiliar but friendly-looking woman and shrugging her off. She was surprised he could carry her at all, as he wasn’t much bigger, but phoenixes tended to not make a whole lot of sense anyway and with how woozy she was feeling she couldn’t bring herself to care.
“Clash, I can’t heal this.” The woman knelt down and looked at Solace closely. “Do you have the energy to shift back into your human form?”
Solace cawed quietly in response.
“I need you to try, even if you pass out afterwards. We don’t have the ability to heal your phoenix form right now and you won’t die if you change.”
Solace reached for it but couldn’t muster the energy. Her vision was hazy, she couldn’t-
“You won’t die!” Energy wrapped around her in the form of helping fire and she suddenly could grip it. She shifted into her human form and blacked out immediately, only registering Clash’s presence with his wings spread and eyes glowing fiercely as he transferred energy to her.
Waking up after getting her ass kicked like that was going to be embarrassing.
~~~
Myrzen was already feeling pretty tired of this whole war business and he was only halfway through his second battle. He’d had to go into melee with a phoenix and had only escaped being burned because of the energy shell around his body. He hadn’t been too enthusiastic about wading into flames, and attacking the phoenix had been almost automatic, but he had emerged unscatched and he was pretty sure that the phoenix was down for the count if not dead and it sure looked like he’d helped.
The Balancer beside him snarled in frustration and crossed her arms. “I never get to finish anything off,” she complained, “and half of these guys are too fast to do anything to. Can we get closer to the ground?”
No, Myrzen wanted to scream, but he tiredly nodded. “Yeah. We can get closer.” He scanned around at the nearby Avengers and the red-winged Purifier that had taken to following him around. “Stand closer if you’re moving in.” The Balancer, the Purifier, and two Avengers crowded behind Myrzen as he raised his shield, the golden energy barrier making him feel a whole lot better as they descended towards the ground alongside another group that was late getting into the melee.
Approaching demons made the Avengers leap out from behind Myrzen’s shield and charge into combat, fighting them one-on-one and leaving two more demons to charge the barrier. One of them was shot through the chest by a blast from the Balancer and the other fired spikes of ice into Myrzen’s shield that thankfully shattered on impact. One of the demons fell and the Avenger responsible turned to the free demon and froze, almost falling. Myrzen looked closer at the demon, concerned, and was locked in a similar state when he realized what the Avenger had noticed.
The demon flew on feathered wings, blacker than the deepest darkness that Myrzen had ever seen. But he was unmistakably a demon, with horns curving out the sides of his head and pointing forward, sharp teeth and claws, and a single glowing purple eye that burned with the fury of Hell.
Before Myrzen or the Avenger could recover- fly away, attack, anything- the demon launched himself forward, digging his claws into the Avenger and blasting flames from his mouth. The Avenger screamed and thrashed, trying to get him off. The demon sharpened the feathers on his wings and started slashing, ignoring a cut that the Avenger managed to deliver on his back as they started to fall, his weight pulling them both down to the ground.
“What is that?” Myrzen whispered, watching them fall and knowing the Avenger was doomed.
“A plague upon creation,” the Balancer replied, shuddering. “I’m not too keen on fighting it.”
“We’ve got bigger problems! Guardian, ahead!” Myrzen turned to look forward and felt all the blood leave his face as another demon drew level with them, this one radiating more power than any of the others they had fought. Green wings beat the air and a grimoire floated alongside her, glowing brightly along with her eyes. She seemed almost familiar, somehow, but he couldn’t quite-
“Hello,” the demon said pleasantly. “I’m here to kill you.”
The Balancer fired another beam of energy and the demon deflected it with a muttered word and a hand gesture. The book glowed brighter and she barked an incantation, slashing the air with her claws. Pulses of green energy shot outward from where she carved the air and hit Myrzen’s shield, cracking the energy barrier.
“Do something!” he shouted at the Balancer, and then the demon struck again. A raging fireball hit his shield straight on, shattering the energy barrier and blasting him back. The Purifier bolted, folding her wings and taking her chances with vanishing into the raging battle below. Myrzen wasn’t far behind as he heard the Balancer scream a final call of agony. He flew faster, fear clawing at his heart and setting fire to his blood.
Burning pain struck his back and he screamed, feathers burning and causing him to fall. He slammed into the ground hard enough to crack his wing bones and he cried out, curling into a tight ball once he stopped moving. He had crashed in a calmer area, just out of the range of the battlefield, but he knew it wouldn’t be long until an enemy came to finish him off.
He found that he was having trouble getting the will to sit up, his mind overwhelmed with the shrieking pain from his back and wings. Blood pounded in his ears so loudly that he almost didn’t hear the approaching footsteps, faster than something friendly and just as unfamiliar. He sat up and uncurled in time to see the black-feathered demon from before charging him, wings spread with knifelike feathers glinting in the sun and bloodstained claws raised.
He scrambled back, dragging his useless wing behind him, and threw his shield arm over his face so that he wouldn’t have to see it coming. His shield had been lost sometime in his crash, but it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t help him. He braced for pain but it never came, the footsteps slowing and eventually stopping.
Hesitant, he lowered his arm and looked up.
The demon had stopped a couple of feet from him and had slowly lowered its wings, letting the feathers unsharpen to a more natural state. He was looking down at Myrzen with an expression caught between guilt and pity.
“You’re just a kid,” he said finally, sheathing his claws.
Myrzen didn’t know how to respond to that so he just didn’t, not daring to move or speak out of fear of triggering the demon’s rage.
The demon sighed and shook his head. “I should have known that Heaven wouldn’t care if they send rank ones in. They see it as a way to prove yourself, right?” When Myrzen didn’t respond, the demon frowned at him. “Oh, come on, I’m not going to kill you. It’s your Archangels and your assholes I have a problem with.” He squatted down to Myrzen’s level. “I used to be one of you, you know. I was a rank two Avenger when everything went wrong.” He flicked a stone on the ground. “You remind me of me, I guess. Overwhelmed. In over your head. Afraid of failure.”
Myrzen’s voice shook when he spoke. “You don’t know me.”
The demon sighed. “No, but it’s close enough.” He held out a hand. “I’m Cataclysm.”
Myzren looked at it suspiciously, refusing to shake. “Myrzen.”
Cataclysm nodded and pulled his hand back. “Good name. Look, kid, I can’t… I can’t stay. I need to get back to the battle, but do yourself a favor.” He stood up. “Leave. Hide somewhere until one of the Archangels sounds the retreat. Then get out of here.”
“I can’t fly.” Myrzen kicked himself for admitting weakness to a demon, but it was fairly obvious with the way his wing was twisted.
“Get a Purifier to heal you.” Cataclysm spread his wings. “And don’t do anything stupid.” He took off, leaving Myrzen alone with a lot of confusion and a lot of pain.
He didn’t know demons could be merciful.
He turned Cataclysm’s words over in his head for awhile, losing track of time until wingbeats caught his attention and he looked up to see the red-winged Purifier land beside him.
“I’m so sorry but thank the Maker I found you!” She immediately started healing him and he let out an involuntary sigh of relief as his wing started to mend. “I knew that we couldn’t hold back that demon and I just… I panicked. I’m sorry. I failed you, Guardian.”
“Myrzen.”
“What?”
“My name is Myrzen. And you didn’t fail me. You just… wanted to live.” He got to his feet and flapped his wings a few times, feeling his injured wing sting in protest but he judged it useable. “And I’m the one that sat here doing nothing until I got healed. Thank you.”
“Oh. Um.” She gripped her staff tighter. “I’m Lyara.”
“Lyara,” Myrzen repeated. “Well, Lyara, I’m afraid I’m not a very good Guardian.” He spread his arms. “I kinda lost my sword and shield.”
Lyara looked at him oddly for a moment before she started to laugh, and he joined in, the stress and relief and pain all making the situation completely unreal and ridiculous in that moment.
When an Archangel called for a retreat, they went together, leaving slain angels and demons alike on the ground far below.
Even as he passed through the Ruby Gate back into Heaven, Myrzen was thinking about Cataclysm and all he had said.
He would be troubled for quite awhile.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-01 01:38 am (UTC)“I can do that.” Tac had gotten used to the weird things that Nathan said, but it didn’t mean she totally understood what the hell he was talking about or why he bothered to say them. The fact that he showed up once every few weeks and stole Shawn for a few days (often coming back in a different car than they’d left in) meant that she got a decent amount of time to talk to him, but she wasn’t ever too enthusiastic about doing so.
That almost sounds like the adventures of Rick and Morty but with Nathan and Shawn instead XP
She didn’t answer him, preferring to grip tightly to his back as he soared down to the ground with her, landing next to an unfamiliar but friendly-looking woman and shrugging her off. She was surprised he could carry her at all, as he wasn’t much bigger, but phoenixes tended to not make a whole lot of sense anyway and with how woozy she was feeling she couldn’t bring herself to care.
“Clash, I can’t heal this.” The woman knelt down and looked at Solace closely. “Do you have the energy to shift back into your human form?”
Solace cawed quietly in response.
“I need you to try, even if you pass out afterwards. We don’t have the ability to heal your phoenix form right now and you won’t die if you change.”
Solace reached for it but couldn’t muster the energy. Her vision was hazy, she couldn’t-
“You won’t die!” Energy wrapped around her in the form of helping fire and she suddenly could grip it. She shifted into her human form and blacked out immediately, only registering Clash’s presence with his wings spread and eyes glowing fiercely as he transferred energy to her.
Waking up after getting her ass kicked like that was going to be embarrassing.
*scoops Solace up onto a stretcher and calls for help lifting her into the medical tent* Someone put on a pot of coffee I need to save a phoenix child! *rolls up sleeves*
Approaching demons made the Avengers leap out from behind Myrzen’s shield and charge into combat, fighting them one-on-one and leaving two more demons to charge the barrier. One of them was shot through the chest by a blast from the Balancer and the other fired spikes of ice into Myrzen’s shield that thankfully shattered on impact. One of the demons fell and the Avenger responsible turned to the free demon and froze, almost falling. Myrzen looked closer at the demon, concerned, and was locked in a similar state when he realized what the Avenger had noticed.
The demon flew on feathered wings, blacker than the deepest darkness that Myrzen had ever seen. But he was unmistakably a demon, with horns curving out the sides of his head and pointing forward, sharp teeth and claws, and a single glowing purple eye that burned with the fury of Hell.
Before Myrzen or the Avenger could recover- fly away, attack, anything- the demon launched himself forward, digging his claws into the Avenger and blasting flames from his mouth. The Avenger screamed and thrashed, trying to get him off. The demon sharpened the feathers on his wings and started slashing, ignoring a cut that the Avenger managed to deliver on his back as they started to fall, his weight pulling them both down to the ground.
Go Cata Go!
“We’ve got bigger problems! Guardian, ahead!” Myrzen turned to look forward and felt all the blood leave his face as another demon drew level with them, this one radiating more power than any of the others they had fought. Green wings beat the air and a grimoire floated alongside her, glowing brightly along with her eyes. She seemed almost familiar, somehow, but he couldn’t quite-
“Hello,” the demon said pleasantly. “I’m here to kill you.”
Woo! Go Geek!
Even as he passed through the Ruby Gate back into Heaven, Myrzen was thinking about Cataclysm and all he had said.
He would be troubled for quite awhile.
*crosses fingers for Myrzen and some other angels to defect due to Cata's words*
no subject
Date: 2017-02-02 04:49 am (UTC)and yes that was scara in case people didn't gather
I love seeing characters we know from povs of people who won't recognize them. It's always interesting.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-03 02:06 pm (UTC)Huzzah I correctly identified my character ^^
Yup, it is interesting. So I take Meria didn't look too much like me then? Or I would have seemed somewhat familiar.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-03 11:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-04 12:02 am (UTC)SCIENCE!